Should Conservative Party members have the final say? There are many who think the choice should be made by elected MPs, who have to work day by day with the leader. In a letter published in The Spectator on 6 August, Alistair Lexden recalled the efforts made in 2005 - which almost succeeded - to change the existing system introduced in 1998. Under such proposals the current contest would have been decided in some three weeks instead of dragging on interminably, leaving the government of the country in limbo.
Sir: Douglas Murray rightly deplores the Conservative party’s ‘brutally inefficient leadership contest’ (article, 23 July). How different it would have been if Michael Howard’s wise reform plans had been adopted after the 2005 election. As a last service to the party he had brought back from disaster, Howard worked assiduously before his resignation as leader in late 2005 to garner support for the kind of leadership election rules that a sensible and reasonably efficient party should have. MPs would spend a couple of weeks sounding out opinion in their constituencies; the results would be weighed up by the 1922 Committee chairman, and the two most popular candidates made known; MPs would then vote. Michael Spicer, then 1922 Committee chairman, noted in his diary on 27 September 2005: ‘leadership rule change ballot produces a majority in favour of change of about 61 per cent, which is not enough (63.6 per cent needed).’ Why has no one sought to build on the foundations that Howard created to equip the Party with a scheme that avoids the disaster likely to occur if MPs do not choose the leader?
Alistair Lexden
House of Lords, London SW1
